Christmas is almost over - and 2010 is almost here.

We spent the Christmas weekend in Trysil with my family this year. For the first time (ever, I think) both sets of grandparents were with us for dinner and unwrapping of gifts (we do that on December 24th here in Norway). All in all we spent about three hours opening gifts, and we were 9 people there - including Emma. Next year, for New Years, I suppose there will be another little one with us.

Both my mom and I decided to save the SSCS-parcels for when we all opened our other gifts, hop over to her blog and see what she received from her Secret Santa. :)

My Secret Santa this year was Anne from the UK. Look at the gorgeous wallhanging she made for me - thank you soooo much! The quilting is absolutely gorgeous.



Because we weren't going to be home for Christmas Eve - nor for New Years Eve - we decided to not put up all the decorations this year. I like our Christmas decorations, but - unlike last year, when we decided to stay at home for most of the time, and even had a Christmas tree - this year we brought out the advents lights, the advent star and some of these newly made elves that were made and ended up a little bit here and there around our apartment.


I bought them at Panduro, in a kit, and they were fun and easy to put together.

There has been a little time - and inspiration - for stitching so far this Christmas. I brought with me 4 pieces of the Tail Feathers-pattern to Trysil, and managed to finish them all (these are miniature blocks, to go together with other blocks to form block 3 and 4 of the Tail Feathers-quilt by Cinderberry Stitches). I've prepped stitching blocks from block 6 and 7 to work on (I'm saving block 5 a little, not quite sure about those tiny applicated circles... hmm...) and also the four stitching blocks from one of her (Cinderberry Stitches, again, if you didn't guess it) lates patterns, Raspberry Cream. The raspberry red is a little bit too pink for my liking, but I'm giving it a go - it might turn out lovely, as most of the patterns I've tried from Cinderberry Stitches.


Wishing you all a wonderful New Year! May it bring happiness and joy, inspiration and creativity.

I know what we'll be doing the next couple of months.. and we've already started. Thanks to my sister and a friend of hers, we've got drawers full of tiny clothes, we've started to buy the basics, like a sheep's wool/skin, and other useful items. March is not _that_ far away anymore, less than 100 days away.. *yikes*

Counting down for Christmas

Well, it's about 17 days left - and I _think_ we're starting to see things come together. There's a pile of presents wrapped and ready in the bedroom, some in the mail (what on earth did we do before the whole online Christmas shopping was available??), and some need to be fixed in one or two of the local stores, but I do still believe that things are under control.

Last week I received my SSCS parcel - and it came from the UK, from the lovely Anne. Just look at that cute ornament that she made - and the shiny parcel is very tempting, but it's being safely stored until Christmas eve. We'll be celebrating Christmas with my family this year, so I think that my mom and I might open our SSCS parcels at the same time. :)



Nothing much going on besides Christmas planning these days.. it's raining on and off in Oslo, so the world is grey and black and kinda depressing. We had one morning last week which was white and snowy, but it started to rain around lunchtime, so that didn't last very long.. oh well, there will be snow in Trysil, and most likely also in Hvittingfoss.

I'm thinking about arranging a give-away here on the blog in a couple of days, to celebrate 100 posts (been a while since that happened, though), that Epla is up and running (the Norwegian answer to Etsy, and yes, we do have a tiny shop there), that Christmas is near, and just because - well - in the darkest parts of the year, one needs a little light sometimes. So stay tuned or come back soon, and we'll see what we can arrange. ;)

Have a wonderful pre-Christmas day!

Ready for the postoffice

Well, the time has come. The time to pack up the SSCS-parcel and get it on it's way.


This year's work was a little different than the previous ones, considering that my focus (unfortunetly?) was not completely focused (haha) on the SSCS and my "victim". But! I think that the finished parcel and it's contents worked out pretty good. I just hope that the receiver will enjoy it too.


So, there you have it, ready and packed - will be delivered to the postoffice tomorrow afternoon (just need to get through another day at work first).

Perhaps I can find time (focus??) to get some work done on some Christmas presents too, now - or perhaps that too will be a little difficult?

Some changes

Well, I am painfully aware of the fact that this blog hasn't been regularly updated since.. well, almost ever - and the fact is that there hasn't been much sewing going on lately either.

With exception of some SSCS secret stuff which cannot and should not be shown on this blog - yet - there has been very little sewing and quilting going on.

Instead, knitting needles have been in use, producing some very small things.. very, very small things..

Needless to say, there's something else that seems to take over the time, thoughts and lives of ourselves and our families.

So, without further chit-chatting around the - until now - pretty much private matter, please welcome our little alien, our thingy, tiny - and what ever other nickname he/she is going to have over the next months:


The big introduction will happen sometime between March and April.

And so, to those who feel that the activity level of this blog has been non-excisting, or that we have been very little out in public lately, I hope that you will forgive us. I doubt that this trend will change any time soon - but one's always allowed to hope, right?

Last weekend

An extra vacation in London.

This is taken from the top of the London Eye. Kinda fun to see some of the big sightings, like the bridge they ruined in "Harry Potter and the half-blood prince" (and, I believe, in one of the episodes of "Dr. Who"), being on the London Eye (which they almost broke in one of the "Fantastic Four"-movies), and seeing the Parlament, which they blew up last night (just kidding, but they did blow it up in "V for Vendetta", which was shown on TV last night).

Bunnies and knitting

Both in brown.

I suppose that I'm getting a little tired of making stuff for other people all (ahem, most) the time. It seems that most of the things I've made lately have either been intended for others - or made as gifts. About time to be a little selfish and make something just for me, don't you think? :)

I've not completely finished the stuff going to my little victim (SSCS2009) yet, but it's not much more work until it's finished. I just need to find the inspiration to sit down by the sewing machine. It seems to be pretty hard these days. (It's easier to work on bunnies or knitting in front of the TV than to move the TV to the kitchen, where the sewing machine sits).

Fall's here!

And homemade bread make's it almost perfect. :)

A quiet moment..

Between the battles. :)

A new project in red.

Can you guess what it'll be?

Edit : It's in wool - again. It seems cotton yarn and me don't get along very well.. Something about the flexibility of the yarn, I think. But! Wool is very nice to knit with. Especially merino. ;)

Preparing for Winter!

Well, a bit early, yes, but one can never be too prepared. ;)

Not quite the summer feeling.

It's raining again, but still pretty warm outside.

Blafre Design (in Norwegian)

Blafre Design har en trekning på gang i disse dager (trekningen vil foretas mandag kl. 21:00) og man kan vinne gavekort fra nettbutikken deres. Blafre designer noen utrolig kule bokser og kort - og jeg vet at i allefall jeg ikke hade hatt stort imot å få en ny matboks. ;)

Hvis du har lyst til å være med, ta en tur innom Blafre Design og ta en kikk.

Lykke til!

Getting there - & sinking in

Well, I have been thinking about writing this post for - well, more or less - forever, but it's been put off over and over again. I guess, when busy times at work take most of one's enery, writing a blog post is an extra mile of work.

What's been going on lately? Emma's baptism took place a couple of weeks ago. As you can see, Emma was quite pleased with the purple monster - Ox - that she got from her aunt and uncle. ^-^ (Not one of our creations, I'm afraid, but UglyDolls are quite good at making monsters too.)



I joined a block of the month (BOM) from Buttonberry about a month ago, and a couple of weeks ago I got the first block in the mail. And, just as I receive an email telling me that block two is in the mail, I finished the first block. It's the gorgeous "Tailfeathers" by Cinderberry Stitches!

I'm using the same floss and fabric range as the pattern calls for - Patisserie, by Moda - and I just have to say that this might be the cutest, most adorable BOM I've seen in a while. ^-^It was cute as a pattern, cute drawn up on the fabric, adorable stitched - and just gorgeous sewn together. Can't wait for the next block - but, with my luck, it won't arrive until we're on the plane. We're off to Iceland in about two days time - and should really be spending the time packing, but, oh well, one can pack the night before, right?

We're spending 10 days in and around Reykjavik, so if anyone have any ideas or tips about what we should see while we're there, let us know. ;)

The feeling of vacation is slowly sinking in - although so far it's more or less feeling alot like a normal weekend - only, no alarms are set for tomorrow morning. ;D

Time continues to fly

Strange, isn't it, how time always seem to fly so fast - eventhough you have tons of things you would like to do - and suddenly it's Sunday, and it's been more or less a month since the last "real" post. Oh well.. I blame it on periods of sunshine, knitting and movies (Dr. Who The New Series and Criminal Minds are definetly to blame here). :)

Well, I think the last post contained a picture from the NQT in Göteborg - a great trip, but somewhat chaotic, considering all the people. The dinner had 664 registered guests (I wonder what happened to the dessert? o_O ), the city was beautiful, and a tiny bit of shopping was done. I only bought two things at the NQT shop area (well, three, but the last one was a gift for the summer lottery in Lørenskog, so it doesn't really count) - a jellyroll from Moda (Patisserie, to be used in the new Cinderberry Stitches BOM, which should arrive some time now in June) and a kit (sewing kit in blue/gray) from QuiltMyDesign - which I think ended up being everybody's favorite shop.

I went to my very first course in Göteborg (been sewing since I could hold a needle - and quilting since I was about 10 or 12) and I absolutely loved it! But I do believe that if I ever go to another course, I might be very disappointed.. According to the more course-experienced ladies attending, noone had ever been to a better prepared course. The lovely lady who held it, Mirjam Hakala from Finland, had prepared 10 projects (actually 12, since one of them had three different solutions to chose from) under the theme "The Quilter's Sewing Accessories" (course no. 22), and she had made models showing all of them, written great and easily understood (incredible detailed) descriptions of how to create them - and on top of it all, she had prepared individually packed kits for all models (precut fabric, paper templates, drawn templates, buttons, beads, string, everything you could possible need to complete each model)!

I brought my (then) 4 completed models to show a couple of the ladies in Lørenskog the following Wednesday, and they all agreed that I should finish all the models by the August meeting (the first one after the summer) and have a little presentation of the course. And I'm working on it. ;) As you see in the picture below, I have now completed 6 of the models, and have four kits left - although I am thinking about making the two other versions of the star (on the left) but then again, I have made these ones before, so I can just bring two of them to illustrate the choices.



In other news, I'm still knitting! I've figured out that I'm unable to read while driving (bus or car), I haven't tried sewing yet, but knitting works like a charm! So far - since April - I've knitted a shawl (picture will come soon, I just need to get a good one) and fall pants for Emma, and currently I'm working on another blanket in light wool (just to have something ready for when we go driving.

Speaking of Emma, it's her baptism next Sunday, so we'll be going up to Trysil - and so will more or less the rest of the family too. My national costume is ready (bunad, as we call it) and I have bought the shoes to wear with it, so I'll be sure to get some pictures of that too.

And last, but not least, I'd like to say "Hi!" to the wonderful girls from Lillehammer, who we shared table with during the dinner in Göteborg. It was lovely to meet you - and I hope we meet again soon. :)

I'm off to get some lunch now - and possible a walk outside in the sun. A Frozen Cocoa seems very tempting (it's actually very very nice).

Have a nice Sunday!

NQT in Gøteborg

A bit chaotic - and some waiting.

Tempus Fugit - Busy Times

Well, it's been a while, and although I've thought about blogging every now and then, time just hasn't been on my good side. Much thanks to this little girl.

Meet Emma, our niece and the newest member of the family.




There hasn't been much sewing going on lately, more knitting, actually. In the picture above, taken on her first real trip outside in her stroller, Emma's wearing a hat I knitted up the night before (the other one she got was a little tight, and nobody likes a tight hat, now do we?).

But I think - maybe - I'll manage to get a more creative post together soon. Sometime. Maybe. ;)

We're off to Göteborg next week - for the Nordic Quilt Meeting. I should definetly manage to get some pictures from there. :) And maybe, just maybe, Cinderberry Stitches will finish her new BOM soon too - my fingers are itching!

Monster's on the subway?!

Just kidding. :) A friend showed me how to do this a while ago. Pretty neat, huh?

Preparations and finds

On Monday we went out to Sandvika to deliver the two quilts I've entered in the NQF (Norwegian Quilt Association) yearly meeting/exhibition/stuff. It's the first time I'm entering an exhibition, and I'm both excited to see how my quilts are doing - and nervous, because, well, nobody wants to hear bad things about their work, right?

Anyway, this is a glimse of what I've entered - my Truly Scrumptious and Annie's Calendar Quilt. I feel bad for not having any of them up on the wall yet, but to be honest, we don't really have the space in our apartment..


I took a walk downtown after work one day, and came across this old - once painted over - sign, and - well, yes, I do live with a graphic designer who collects pictures of old signs, so I've just had to get influenced somehow, right? - well, I just had to take a picture. it looks like the sign for Johs Falkenberg (as in Johannes Falkenberg, I'm wondering what kind of business that was..) might be handpainted or "stensilized", but it looks way cooler and prettier then those plastic signs they use now. :)


And lastly, this guy was put up on a wall in our neighbourhood a couple of weeks ago. I think it's a stensil too, not quite sure.. but it's really cool and incredible detailed. Too bad, though, I know that tagging (as they call it here in Norway) isn't allowed and it ruins the buildings, but things like this one is actually pretty to look at and makes you smile. :) Sadly, when I came home from work today, someone had painted over him.. :( I still wonder who made him - and if the artist has more creations like this one around the city.

One Picture a day - 6, 7 & 8

This weekend was truly coloured by the cinematic kind : two visits to the movies (Watchmen and The Secret Lives of Bees), and a ton of films and series on DVD.

One picture a day - 5.

Quiz night!

One picture a day - 4

I like this bench - eat the rich. ;)

One picture a day - 3

Sunshine!

One picture a day - 2

Playing with blues and browns. :)

One picture a day - 1

This has been taking up alot of my time lately.

Part of my desk.

This is a small part of my desk at work. Currently blinded by the sunshine and snow outside, but you can see my calendar, a picture of my Truly Scrumptious quilt, and a birthday card I got last year. Oh, and my bamboo plant (it's the green "stick" on the right). :)

Our Etsy-shop

I forgot to blog the address to our Etsy-shop last week..


Nibbles'n'Bits

What's this?

When I was walking to the tram (trikk) yesterday - after gettting broke in the Nøstebarn-store - I found this poor little fellow sitting outside a coffee bar. I think he wanted to go inside and get some warmth in his branches..

Would you like ice with that?

Edit: This picture shows a gigantic piece of ice hanging outside the window of the office. Cool, huh? Despite the Oslo winter going from cold to warm and back again to cold, there are some pieces of beauty out there. Btw, we had to showel snow twice this weekend - BF went outside on Saturday and did a fantastic job, but when Sunday came, there was just as much - or even more - snow in the yard. Atleast we didn't have to dig out the car on the way to work today (we both take the bus). ;)

Help!

We're snowing in. I wish..

Today's view

Fog and snow. :)

I think that basically sums it all up. After about half a week with - for Oslo - very cold temperatures, it started to snow yesterday afternoon. And this morning? Well, still something falling down (although extremely small pieces of such) and about 10 centimeters (close to 4 inches) on the ground. Atleast they tried to remove most of it from the roads earlier this morning.

Winter's here!

As the picture shows, it's a really nice day - only, it's very cold. Very cold for Oslo.. This morning, when I left the apartment around 6AM, it was about -10 degrees celsius outside. People might say that it's colder in Trysil, but I have to disagree. It's a completely different type of cold near the coast then inside the country or up in the mountains. The moist from the sea really makes everything sooo much colder. It feels like no matter how much clothes you're wearing, the cold sneaks around, finds a weak spot, and attack. I'd rather have the -26 degrees celsius up in the mountains then the -10 degrees celsius (or colder) down here today.

There hasn't been much crafty things going on lately - mostly because we're both working alot these days, and when the weekends finally come, we're spending it on the couch watching movies.. But I have been doing something!

Last night I helped BF finish 4 more softies for our Etsy shop (I'll post a link some day). I finished a pair of baby knitted socks during last week's meeting in the guild, and I'm almost done with the January block for the Sunbonnet Sue BOM. I'm also knitting another baby blanket (in very very soft and light wool) and I'm about halfway done with this one.

On Saturday I received a parcel from an online bookstore with two books about knitting. One's called 50 Baby Booties to Knit and the other is a collection of patterns from a very popular store in Norway (both on and outside the web) called Nøstebarn.

In other news, we've planned our vacation for this summer, booked the hotel and bought the tickets for the plane to... Iceland! We'll be spending 10 lovely days in Reykjavik and the area around, and we've started to plan different activities. According to BF, the guy who runs our hotel also works as a guide of some sorts, and he said he'd help us arrange things if we needed help. This will be so much fun! I've only barely been to Iceland - we had to swap planes there the last time we went to the States - but I don't believe that counts. :)

What's this?

Winter has come - again - probably won't stay that long. I mean, this is Oslo. It never does. Better enjoy it while it lasts. :)

Edit: This picture was taken with my cellphone at about 06:30 this morning, as I was waiting for the bus.